PARCC stands for “Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers”, and is a consortium of eight states, the District of Columbia, and the Breau of Indian Education, that came together to create a standard for K-12 assessment in English and Mathematics. In the state of Illinois, it’s currently used for grades 3-8. The PARCC is an end-of-year assessment given to grade 3-8 students that replaced ISAT test starting in the 2014-2015 school year. PARCC is an entirely different test than ISAT. PARCC emphasizes a student’s ability to think critically, is given on the computer, has much longer testing sessions, and the standards for meeting and exceeding grade level expectations are much higher. It’s based on Common Core Standards.